What part of 'ALL' cannot be understood?

[Lanakila]

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

Yet, liberals continue to trash the authority of the Bible when it comes to homosexuality and other moral issues, as if the Bible cannot be trusted. Is 2 Timothy 3:16 a complete lie? If so, why do you even bother reading a Bible?

How was it determined what books of the Bible belong inside? How did they decide which ones to leave out? How can you use a verse from the Bible to prove the Bible? Isn't that circular reasoning?

 

[selfinflikted]

How was it determined what books of the Bible belong inside? How did they decide which ones to leave out? How can you use a verse from the Bible to prove the Bible? Isn't that circular reasoning?

Well, see.. that's the inherrent problem. There are no sources outside the bible to verify or disprove it. Hence the whole "faith" concept. That's all there is.

 

[seebs]

seebs, you have to be reasonable. I don't think the five immoralities I mentioned constitute a "huge set" of laws.

But Leviticus is.

Try to understand, I really, really, want to know the truth. I don't just want to be told that something is true. I want to verify it. Like the Bereans, I want to search the Scriptures and see whether what I am told is true.

One aspect of seeking truth is verification. I want to know what the rubric is, so that I can verify that it is reliable.

I do not want to accept a poorly-designed scheme just because it happened to get the right results five times.

I want a description of the distinction between moral and ceremonial laws, one which does not require examples but can describe the attributes on which we categorize these laws.

If you give me that, then I can use it to see whether the moral teachings it produces from Leviticus are consonant with the words of my Savior.

Without it, though, I see no reason to believe that Leviticus is adding any information. So far as I can tell, you decide in advance what is or isn't moral, perhaps based on other books of the Bible.

Then, if you find agreement in Leviticus, you quote the passage, and if you find disagreement, you ignore it.

That's exactly what I am describing as "useless".

Besides, you only have to decide wether homosexuality is against God's will.

No, I don't.

I'm not gay. I have my own sins to worry about. I don't have to decide anything about homosexuality, or about gay sex.

Using Leviticus and other sources, it should be possible to do that without being confused.

I thought I'd found a way to do this, but now you tell me to use Leviticus, but you won't tell me how to use Leviticus.

Imagine that, without access to a web site that purports to identify which teachings are moral, I am just reading the book of Leviticus.

I find in the book of Leviticus a passage which appears to condemn some action -- we'll call it X.

How do I determine whether X is ritually proscribed to the Hebrews, or morally proscribed to all mankind?

If I must use another source, why read Leviticus at all, when I could just read that other source?

 

[seebs]

So where does that leave someone like me?

Well, it used to be we could just point out that "men" is often used generically to refer to "all humans".

However, due to recent political maneuvering by feminists, I'm afraid the only remaining option is surgery.

 

[seebs]

Well, see.. that's the inherrent problem. There are no sources outside the bible to verify or disprove it. Hence the whole "faith" concept. That's all there is.

Actually, there are other sources; there's a huge amount of extrabiblical material, and some remaining records of the councils that fixed the canon.

It's not as bad as it looks, as long as you're willing to admit that the Apostolic churches might actually know something.

 

[Maynard Keenan]

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

Yet, liberals continue to trash the authority of the Bible when it comes to homosexuality and other moral issues, as if the Bible cannot be trusted. Is 2 Timothy 3:16 a complete lie? If so, why do you even bother reading a Bible?

If you do not accept that the bible is the inerrant word of God before even reading it, there is no reason to believe it when it says it is. That is all I'm going to state because I don't much like threads whose sole purpose is calling out other people to attack them.

 

[Illuminatus]

Nothing is new under the sun.

And everything under the sun is in tune.

But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

 

[Aimee30]

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

Yet, liberals continue to trash the authority of the Bible when it comes to homosexuality and other moral issues, as if the Bible cannot be trusted. Is 2 Timothy 3:16 a complete lie? If so, why do you even bother reading a Bible?

A. It says it is useful for teachimg, not enforcing.
B. If I take it as stated that means, the Christian Gnostic books of the Nag Hammandi Library, the content of the Lost Books of the Bible, the Apochrypha, and maybe even the Qu'ran is God breathed and useful for teaching.
C. There may be translation issues with scripture, so that our meaning may not be the exact of the original intended meaning.

With that, I go by what Jesus says in matters of loving people and how he treated people first, as he is higher ranking in authority.

 

[crumbs2000]

Why do I get the feeling that i'm repeating myself? To start with there's Leviticus 19:11, theft and deceit, 19:16-18, slander, hatred and revenge...all of this is in the link i've posted several times.

http://www.harvestusa.org/articles/lev18&20.htm

seebs, why don't you tell us what you think. Is homosexuality okay with God, or are you just against the use of Leviticus in support of the opposite?

Exodus 3:21-22, 12:35-36 & Luke 19:29-34 all promote stealing.

 

[crumbs2000]

Well, see.. that's the inherrent problem. There are no sources outside the bible to verify or disprove it. Hence the whole "faith" concept. That's all there is.

Yes I agree, but there are also many pointers/indicators that show it if full of erroneous and false teachings. I say 'false' in the sense that a lot of NT and Jesus' teachings are direct contradictions of OT and Levitical laws.

Was the law of the Old Testament destroyed by Christ’s crucification? Luke16:16, Ephesians 2:15 & Romans 7:6 says that the old law is no longer binding. Yet Matthew 5:17-19 and MANY other verses say that the old law is forever binding.

What?????

This and many other things about the bible disturb me and I have since come to the conclusion that whatever truths are contained in it may just be traces or essence of the truth. The truth has been lost somewhere over time due to the fact that no written records were kept at the time but just oral accounts passed down from generation to generation and then some 80 years AD, they decided to write something down from such oral accounts.

I guess that's what faith is about. One cannot say it's the truth as Middlemoor claims it to be.

 

[WhoeverLovesGod01]

Exodus 3:21-22, 12:35-36 & Luke 19:29-34 all promote stealing.

I know where you got that from:

http://www.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm

Evil Bible? Not a good source of wisdom.

 

[GhostDad]

^Source shouldn't matter. Tell us why you don't think those verses support theft.

 

[WhoeverLovesGod01]

The source definately matters. For instance, I would not trust information from:

http://www.truechristian.com/index.html

 

[GhostDad]

Okay, well if I were myself to point out those verses, what would you say in reply?

 

[WhoeverLovesGod01]

Let's just start with Luke 19:29-34:

29As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them,

30"Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.

31If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it.' "

32Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them.

33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?"

34They replied, "The Lord needs it."

Was Jesus a rich man? No? Yes, but not by our standards?

The answer is an emphatic, yes! The whole world belongs to Jesus, we are just stewards of His Kingdom.

If it had been my colt, I would have personally brought it to Him!

 

[seebs]

That's a very bad apologetic for this verse, because it leaves us no way to determine whether or not a given instance of stealing might actually be not "stealing" but "the Lord's will".

Note that, similarly, we are told in Exodus 1 that lying can be noble.

It seems almost as though the real moral standard God is upholding values compassion over legalism. Could there be any support for such a radical notion?

 

[WhoeverLovesGod01]

I should be surprised, but i've been on the forums long enough to know; you can't please someone who's heart is against correction.

So, you call it a bad apologetic, but in my opinion it's the clearest answer I can give.

As for Exodus 1:

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,

16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live."

17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.

18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.

21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born [b] you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."

Taken from: http://skinniyah.blogspot.com/2006/04/lying-and-bible-part-23_19.html

"...they feared God above man. So when Pharaoh commanded them to kill the Hebrew babies, they refused. This was what God blessed them for. They obeyed him rather than man. That they spoke untruth does not justify it just because they were intending good."

 

[kopilo]

Note that, similarly, we are told in Exodus 1 that lying can be noble.

It seems almost as though the real moral standard God is upholding values compassion over legalism. Could there be any support for such a radical notion?

Maybe it means in Exodus 1 that deception can be noble, such as telling someone what they want to hear rather then your own opinion. Just a though.

 

[ebia]

So it's ok to take stuff without asking if you are doing so for the church, and ok to lie if you intend to do good thereby?

 

[seebs]

I should be surprised, but i've been on the forums long enough to know; you can't please someone who's heart is against correction.

So, you call it a bad apologetic, but in my opinion it's the clearest answer I can give.

Well, it creates worse problems; it leaves us no way to determine whether a given act that otherwise appears to be stealing is actually not stealing.

If being "the Lord's will" makes something not-stealing, then we can only judge whether something is stealing if we know whether it is the Lord's will. Since we generally do not know, we are hosed.